jacobinism

Immanuel Kant

is associated with a tightly-organized band of co-believers forcing the pace of history which refuses to accept such limitations to political strategy as the level of industrial development, class formation, culture and consciousness.

Jacobinism has, in this sense, connotations of the small but tightly-organised band of co-believers forcing the pace of history and refusing to accept such limitations to political strategy as the level of industrial development, class formation, culture and consciousness. It is often presented as being synonymous with voluntarism the will of a dedicated elite triumphing over such 'objective' restraints.

is concerned with a self-selected elite who anticipates and acts on the yet-unrecognized will of the masses on their behalf.

Jacobinism itself is frequently, in these accounts, left vague and ill-defined. In general, though, there would probably be some agreement that, in the Russian context, it amounted to the claim that a self-selected elite, by dint of their knowledge, dedication and selflessness, had a surer grasp of the needs of the ordinary people than the people themselves could possess. They felt justified therefore in anticipating the real (but at the time unrecognised) will of the masses, and in acting resolutely on the people's behalf. The prospects for revolution did not therefore depend upon the will of the majority. The Jacobins argued that, given the state's control of education, the church and the army, it was illusory to expect widespread revolutionary consciousness before the revolution.

is grounded in the claim that to wait for transformation would be cowardly and counter-productive, and what is needed is a cohesive organization of dedicated men who would lead a coup, seize state power, and utilize it to inaugurate the socialist transformation of Russia.

They also contained thoroughgoing Jacobins who maintained that to wait for this transformation would be cowardly and counterproductive. What was needed, they argued, was a cohesive organisation of dedicated men who would lead a coup, seize state power, and utilise it to inaugurate the socialist transformation of Russia.

is the idea that a self-selected elite, by dint of their knowledge, dedication and selflessness, had a surer grasp of the needs of the ordinary people than the people themselves could possess.

is the idea that the path to secure the support of the people lay through the prior seizure of state power: Not through a majority to state power, but through state power to a majority.

The path to secure the support of the people lay through the prior seizure of state power: not through a majority to state power, but through state power to a majority that was the general political line of Jacobinism.

is the idea that, given the state's control of education, the church and the army, it was illusory to expect widespread revolutionary consciousness before the revolution.

is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country against its property.

Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country against its property.

jacobinism, n.Definitions

jacobinism